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ADVENTUR
photo by Tom Ives
by Shay Addams
Someone at SSI recently pointed
out to me that their Advanced
Dungeons & Dragons series -
you know, the ones I've consistently
trounced in this column, QuestBusters,
and even in my sleep at times — rank
among the all-time best-selling com
puter games. To which I could only
respond that a lot of people paid to see
Police Academy 6, but that didn't make
it another Gone With the Wind. Finally,
however, SSI has made a major
improvement in the game system intro
duced in Pool of Radiance and barely
upgraded for Curse of the Azure Bonds:
while tactical combat remains the
essence of the gaming experience in
Champions of Krynn. battles no longer
last for hours. In this, the third title in
SSI's Dragonlance series. I never wit
nessed a battle that lasted more than
five minutes, mainly because my party
never faced more than a dozen monsters
in an encounter.
The first Dragonlance games, Heroes
of the Lance and Dragons of Flame,
were action adventures that focused on
arcade-style challenges. Champions of
Krynn, relying on the Pool of Radiance
system, is a role-playing game with
heavy emphasis on tactical combat. It
continues the tale of the evil goddess
Takhisis, whose creations — the Draco-
nians. hideous Lizard Men created with
dragon eggs — are now running amok
across the land of Krynn. Your main
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goal is to track down the eggs and wipe
out the Dracs. but a series of mini-
quests must first be accomplished, and
in linear order. Most involve locating a
magic weapon or other artifact, such as
a magically enhanced sword called the
Dragonlance.
Besides simplified combat. Krynn
introduces a new character race called
Kender. who possess a special combat
capability: when a Kender taunts the
enemy, the monster's ability to hit your
party members is reduced, and your
chances of hitting the monster are
improved. As usual, there's one little
catch: all the enemy's magic spells are
aimed at your Kender.
Other innovations surface in the
magic system. Your spellcasters' abili
ties are affected by the phase of ihree
moons seen atop the screen. When the
white moon is full, for instance, a good
Magic-user can memorize more spells
than at other times: as the moon wanes,
however, his spells lose potency. Other
moons affect Neutral and Evil Magic-
users similarly. And Clerics now get to
pick a god with whom to ally, a deity
who then bestows his Clerics with a
unique advantage, such as increasing
his chances of turning the Undead.
As in previous AD&D titles, Krynn
doles out clues and plot developments
42 INFO July 1990
The C64
version
of SSI's
Champions
of Krynn.
by having you look up numbered para
graphs in a pair of manuals (a technique
introduced in Wasteland). The story
emerges in onscreen dialogue also, and
I have to admit almost enjoying an
AD&D computer game for the first
time. Now if only they'd toss in a few
genuine puzzles to solve, SSI might
someday turn out a game that plays as
well as it sells. This one's their best so
far. and is available for the C64, with an
Amiga version underway.
AMIGA
ULTIMA V
The Amiga version of Ultima V: War
riors of Destiny was set to have been
released about this time, following an
unseemly year-long delay. Unfortu
nately, a deal that had MicroProse dis
tributing ORIGIN products in Europe
went bad, and since MicroProse had
contracted to handle the conversion, the
nearly completed Ultima V — with a
mere ten bugs that needed fixing -
almost never saw the light at the end of
the dungeon.
Anyway, as C64 adventurers are
aware, this is the Ultima in which
you're summoned back to Britannia to
rescue Lord British, who vanished